The Global Peace Tiles project is a fun way to involve people everywhere in arts-based learning and sharing. To date, more than 3,000 people - from 7 to 70 - in over a dozen countries have produced thousands of works of art that have been combined into vibrant murals. Produced in structured workshops, these tiles have been used in many ways - to respond to urgent issues like HIV/AIDS (advocacy), to explore aspects of community (self-expression), to learn more about a topic like children in conflict (education), to build connections among groups of people (exchange), and to work through trauma (therapy).

HandsOn Ogeechee has offered the Peace Tiles Project as a civic engagement activity for youth since the Fall of 2007. 

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The Whole Story

The art teacher I collaborate with was very committed to bringing me in. I was only half-surprised to be so welcomed as we're in small-town America in an area with very conservative values, but Judy is an artist herself and thereby a maverick in the good sense of the word ;) I led with a discussion on the work of my organization whose mission is to bring people together to strengthen communities, and whose work focuses on inspiring, equipping, and mobilizing people to take action that changes the world. This is done through advocacy, capacity building, and generating awareness through volunteer projects. I then got the students involved in a dialog on what they knew and didn't know about HIV/AIDS and it's global impact with resources from the World Bank. I pulled information from a number of websites including UN AIDS. As a group, they also took an interactive online quiz.

We thoroughly discussed each of the eight questions on the quiz and their implications. The discussion included topics such as prevalence (comparing the rates to figures they could get their heads around/contrasting the population of their school, town, county, other major cities, and the state), stigma (diversity and character), and prevention.

The ah-ha moments came as the students put their perceptions in perspective as to: "what kind of people" get HIV/AIDS; health outcomes/how HIV is a virus and its relationship to infections, diseases, and cancers; and the fact that HIV/AIDS did not exist prior to the lifetime of their parents. After the issue education, I reminded them of some of what they'd learned about art and design (color, line, shape, texture, composition, etc.) and showed examples of other Peace Tiles created from around the world. Judy took it from there.

This spring, we will begin a "Class Legacy Wall" at the school, which will be a permanent installation of tiles from the graduating 8th grade class. I'd love to share more with you if you're interested. Just send me a message. I'll also be presenting a poster session at the National Youth-At-Risk Conference in Savannah, Ga in March, 2009. The topic will be on "Engaging Youth in Service & Reflection Through Mixed Media Art."